Alonso is currently third in the standings behind the Mercedes drivers, but already has a 51-point gap to Lewis Hamilton after five races. Alonso believes Monaco could be an opportunity for the chasing pack to get put pressure on Mercedes and has singled out Red Bull as the team with the best opportunity.

"This year I think Monte Carlo will be one of the few opportunities maybe to challenge Mercedes, especially for Red Bull," Alonso said. "In the corners they [Red Bull] are very fast but on the straights they seem to lose a lot of lap time, but in Monte Carlo there are no straights so maybe Red Bull could challenge Mercedes there. We will see. We need to have a strong weekend and obviously in Monte Carlo there is no room for mistake if you touch the walls, so we need some good points in Monte Carlo."

Alonso said it is vital for Ferrari to start putting pressure on Mercedes, even if the F14 T is still no match for the W05 Hybrid in terms of outright performance.

"The performance gap and points gap is quite big and they are doing a fantastic job. Our thinking at the moment is to work hard on the car with all the team in Maranello and try to become more competitive and make things a little bit more difficult for Mercedes. When they win by one minute from everybody, they don't stress the car, they don't make mistakes, so the first step for us is maybe not to win, but not to finish one minute behind and try to complicate things a little bit for them.

"I go to Monte Carlo and Canada thinking that way - that is our target. We go to Monaco and Canada thinking we need to do better and fight to improve our performance."